Year || 503 Season || Fall Temp || 35℉ (℃) - 69℉ (℃) Weather || The iron grip of Summer has slowly faded into the gentler Fall embrace. The morning dew frosts over in the early morning hours and melts by the time the sun hits high in the sky. Many of the trees have traded their lush, vivid green for a more suitable array of red and orange hues. But don't blink, for Winter's cold embrace is fast upon Fall's heels.

"Are there lines she's crossing? Should she toe them or touch them with a pole and stay away wholly? But to avoid such a storm he offers, such a taste of life; to withhold herself from the chance to taste starlight, to love satin and silk and swallow pomegranate seeds not yet offered... She should be stronger." — Moira in Small as a wish in a well

The punch bowl is still just punch, or at least the ones he’s been drinking from are. It’s not always so bad to be aware, he thinks, standing in a room like the ocean. How lovely is it to be in the water and breathe air, clear as daylight and perfumed with all manner of flowers and woods, frankincense and jasmine, myrrh and cinnamon. The horned stallion makes his way to a globe filled with a particularly shimmery fish, circling aimlessly in its minute orb of existence. I wonder where they got you from. Were these fish swimming freely hours early? Or were they created for this moment, illusions only, set to expire at the night’s conclusion? It was almost a sad thought, thinking that these fish, so beautiful, and seemingly so alive, could be gilded lies, dead at dawn. El Toro makes his way to another globe, filled with only water, but it lacks the interest of a living thing. Looking upon a fish makes him ask questions, looking upon contained water makes him bored. The seed is planted; the question of illusion or reality disturbs his fun. ”I oughtta get a real drink.” He no longer wishes to be aware.

The sea was no place for a desert dweller; it was all blues and greens, fluid and cold in its liquid embrace. It was alien to a woman born to sand and sun, a serpent woven by the unrelenting hand of the great Mors. Indeed, this room did not sing to her desire as it would if its walls had been guilded with gold and the orbs filled with sand - but then again, Avdotya was not here seeking the comforts of home.

She glided easily through the room, looking spectacularly out of place in her sprawl of yellows and reds, watching wordlessly as the masquerade went on around her. Her attention slipped in and out of conversations when they interested her, though she found herself consistently disappointed by the excessive dryness of them all. It was verbal fluff, nothing worth her time (as she should have expected in such a public environment, but stupidity flourished in all places). Thus, the viper drifted away from the crowds in favour of the various drinks that awaited consumption.

As she made her way there, her ear caught the stray mumblings of a pale man who seemed just as enthralled with the party as she was. ”That may be the only thing this event has going for it.” Avdotya drawled in passing, the sharpness of her feral tongue as distinct as ever. It was by no means an invite to join her, but it took little to encourage another to a drink when there already existed a thirst.

Regardless, the various bowls lined along the wall had her eye for now... she could only hope Denocte knew a proper drink.

The woman who approached was the absence of color stained. Red marred her perfect darkness and emphasized it; she caught Toro’s still-sober eye before words slithered from between her teeth. He liked her. She had some good scars.

”We’ll have to see about that,” he said, but while Toro had grown up surrounded by the unquenchable thirst of warriors, there was little variety in the way of drink; everything was heavy and dark and weighty as its dough. He found something that glittered like waves in the sun, frothy like seafoam, and thought he saw a fish. He hesitated a moment; unsure if it was part of the room or a true drink. The white stallion took a glass of it, and it stayed like the sparkling sea but turned dark at the bottom as the deep ocean. He drank and it fizzed on his tongue but floated soft as you always imagine seafoam to be. Something in him felt far from home (the ocean had never been his home, anyway, and how many had he crossed to get here?) and he put the drink down. Toro shrugged and grinned lazily at the mare. ”Fun, but you don’t look like the fizzy type either.” It weighed down his limbs quicker than he thought, far quicker, but he trotted sideways to the next, this one really like a fishbowl with a tap. It looked full of pink sand though, and he could just hear the trickling of grains as it flowed into his second glass. It tasted like sea salt and earth, rock candy and the way hot air smelled. He thought he could feel sweat trickling down his shoulders, and his head went fuzzy with heat or alcohol. ”Oh,” Toro said, ”this one’s funky.” He smirked a little at the strange woman and took another swig.

She was unsure of him - unsure of him because he is all that Avdotya is not; he is boldness, a loud presence that demanded attention in a way she could not and would never appreciate. He was an entirely different breed of fighter, a man playing the same game with a foreign strategy. He was a bright, blazing fire while she was the ash that choked the air from starving lungs.

Indeed, a viper is not as brash as the bull.

Yet here the pair stood, away from the frivolity of the masquerade and instead taking sips from Denocte’s buffet of drinks. Most were too much for her own hardened taste, a detail that was so expertly caught by her newfound company. Her lips curled at the thought of ‘fun’ and ‘fizzy’. ”So astute.” She replied, slipping past the first glittering crock to study the next bowl from which he had taken a taste of. Her amber eyes watched him carefully, only slightly suspicious that the next swig could find him falling to the floor.

There was no trust in Avdotya’s cracked heart when it came to anything Denocte. They were a nation known for their trickery, and though their Queen seemed to be turning a new page, she remained ever skeptical. A flock abandoned by their Corvid King was not one to so naively place blind faith in.

And so she pulled a small vial of her own from the fringes of her attire, a quick shot to satisfy her thirst. She brushed past the pale stallion and tossed the glass tube to the floor, then frowned. ”I have always preferred Solterran brews.” They were bitter more often than not, a much finer taste than the sparkling mixes sitting before them.

PURPLE, PINK, AND ORANGE MAKE ME AS HIGH AS WHEN THE SKY MEETS WITH THE OCEAN DOWN BELOW, ON THE SANDY COAST

Maybe she wasn’t as fun as he thought. Warriors always had a good time when they were drunk. Perhaps she wasn’t - not yet. Or she was a different kind of warrior. He grinned as she guzzled a vial and threw it to the floor. ”I have always preferred Solterran brews.” Toro shrugged. ”I grew up with bitter. Sometimes I like to branch out. Try new things, you know? Nothing back home was worth carrying in a flask.” He finished off the pink-sand-drink and moved to something that looked like a wavy sunset. Or…perhaps the waves were not part of the drink. ”I haven’t been in Solterra long enough to get too intimate with their drinks.” His telepathy sloppily poured the sunset in his glass and he eyed it for a good few seconds before sipping it. Toro squinted and smacked his lips. ”Oh, this ones bitter. And a little spicy. You like spicy?” He smirked.

Avdotya's taste was one more obscure than most. She savoured bitterness upon her tongue as though it were a sweet nectar to her hardened palate, so much so that anything different had a tendency to send her lips curling with utter distaste. Anything glittering could have made her stomach turn. Indeed, the wide world of alcohols and magical brews was one left willingly unexplored by the Davke woman - quite possibly because a Davke did not often consume it to begin with. It was only when they pillaged the right caravan that they were able to indulge in the more finer aspects of Court life... and even then, never enough to find themselves intoxicated. Very few Davke had ever felt the effect of these brews; even Avdotya herself had never had her mind slip beneath alcohol's influential hand.

So now, while she watched this man lose his steadiness, Avdotya reminded herself of why the satisfaction of one quick swig of her preferred drink outmatched that of excess. At least until he described his next glass, harsh and... spicy, he called it. She felt her head tilt ever so slightly with his words. "I do not know spicy." The woman stated plainly (perhaps just as plain as her diet, apparently), then stepping closer so she could lean her head in and inhale the aroma from his glass. It took only a few moments more for her curiosity to finally break, giving way and urging Avdotya to pour just a small amount it into a goblet of her own.

The viper's eyes lingered on him just long enough for Toro to be able to catch the confounding look that gripped her when her tongue began to burn. It was a subtle sting, but enough coax Avdotya into another sip. And then another. "This is different," she paused, unsure if she wanted to admit it- "in a good way, I suppose." There was a peculiar warmth that had started to creep up in the centre of her chest, one she was entirely unfamiliar with. For now, though, she dismissed it as 'the spicy'.

Toro laughed something spitty and sputtering at the way she spoke, and said, overly loud, ”Well, you oughtta find out,” and that not-so-fun warrior did.

”This is different. In a good way, I suppose.” The white stallion grinned stupidly and tipped his glass to her, spiced sunset sloshing over the side and splashing a passerby. Another man, decked in black silks and cloth-of-gold, turned. ”Hey! Look what you did!” Toro snorted. He upturned his tilted glass onto the stranger’s head. ”Oops,” Toro looked at the black mare smugly before receiving a headbutt to the throat. He stumbled backwards, into the table of mystical drinks, and another mare, innocently pouring herself some of that spiced sunset. She gasped as the drink splattered against her own sanguine gown.

El Toro winked at Avdotya before spitting at his assailant, ”Fuck you,” and ramming into him.